Abstract
Globalization has resulted in people crossing borders, changes in the economy and cultural diffusion requiring new skills and attitudes in multi/transnational/modal and multi/translingual contexts, which is a challenge for youth in the global south, who partly for colonial legacy and hegemony have received instructions in exoglossic languages instead of their endoglossic languages. Until 1997, primary school pupils from diverse ethno-linguistic backgrounds couldn’t draw on local language resources to enhance learning because instructions were exclusively provided in English, contrary to the advocacy for translanguaging and transmodalities - endorsing maximum language diversity, implicit in an ecological approach to language planning, and reflected in the belief that bilinguals do not have separate languages, but one linguistic repertoire that consists of all of their communicative modes and features. This challenge is further compounded by negative community and familial attitudes and practices towards local languages which disadvantages the youth to engage their multitude of language resources or value them. This study adopts an ecological approach which views languages and communicational modes as part and parcel of the community that uses them to analyze data from videos, chats and focus group interviews of Ugandan Global StoryBridges participants engaged (out of school) in transnational transmodal communications as negotiated in and shaped by the local and transnational interactions, and mediated by technological affordances, to explore interactions between: transmodal practices and youths’ valuing them; transmodal interactions with and understandings of diverse global others; community views and understandings; local educational practices and policies; and participants’ views of benefits and constraints.
Presenters
Willy NgakaAssociate Professor, Department of Adult, Community and Lifelong Learning, Kyambogo University, Uganda
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Education and Learning Worlds of Differences
KEYWORDS
Global story bridges, Language diversity, Learning ecologies, Multimodal/lingual contexts, Translanguaging
